9DCU0403HD_Directors_Cut_Studio_Transcript

 
I'm Charles Monroe-Kane.  That was a clip from "Ed Gein, The Musical. " Yes, a musical about Ed Gein, the serial killer.  We're joined today by the film's writer and lead actor, Dan Davies, and the film's director Steve Russell.  Guys, thanks for joining us today.  Well, thank you, Chuck.  So, the most obvious question, I'm going to ask both of you this.  First, to the director.  Why in the world would you want to make a musical about Ed Gein? Ed Gein's a notorious Wisconsin figure.  There's been more movies made about him than anyone else in Wisconsin history.  And we needed to do a different take on it.  So there comes the musical.  Definitely a different take.  You, why do you want to be, not only part of it, you're obviously, you're Ed Gein as well.  Why did you want to do that? I'm from Waupaca, which is about 20 minutes from Plainfield.  Steve's actually from Montello, which is about half an hour as the crow flies to Plainfield.  We grew up not only with the stories, but from a logistic point of view, we were close to it.  And my grandfather actually knew the arresting sheriff very well.  They were best friends.  And my grandmother's good friend was Bernice Worden, who he murdered just before he got arrested.  So for me, not only was it locally, I was kind of from that area, but familial. 

 It's my family, was affected by him.  And a buddy of mine came back from New York about 15 years ago and he wanted to do an actual documentary on Ed Gein, and I said, I looked at him and said, "What about 'Ed Gein,' a musical about him?" And he looked at me and he was disgusted.  And he walked away.  And I thought, we're on to something.  We're on to something.  Real quick, just because I want to make sure everybody knows who he is, just give us a little short biography.  Who was Ed Gein, in case people don't remember? Ed Gein was arrested in 1957 for his second murder, but in the ten years prior to that, he dug up between 40 and 80 bodies and made furniture, lampshades, various home implements out of the bodies.  And it was 1957.  Now, I want to see another clip from the film, and I want to warn our viewers here before we get started that this is a pretty graphic and violent clip.  But I want you to set it up for us.  This is kind of the woman in the barn, waking up to the radio.  Why don't you set up that clip for us before we see it.  It's Ed and it's Ed, right after the murder of Bernice Worden, and he's got another body on the table that he'd exhumed, a dead body, and now he's going to do his horrible, wicked, nefarious things to this body.  So he's kind of got them backed up like a deli, basically.  So that's kind of, I guess, the best way to describe it and set it up.  There you go.  Here is a clip from "Ed Gein, The Musical. " ( radio announcer ) And that was "It's a Lonely Reel," by the original Butcher Shop Boys, Eddie and the "Guy-ns. " Or, that should be "Geins. " WVDY would like to take a moment to thank our sponsors.  Olsons Petroleum, where the choice is yours. 

 The Wild Rose Fish Hatchery.  "If you've found a good hole to put your worm in, we've been there first. " And. . .  Hi, I'm Bernice Johnston for Johnston's Hardware.  This week, we're cutting prices on all hunting supplies.  We're slaughtering the competition.  If you're hunting for a good value, then keep your sight set on Johnston's.  Thanksgiving is right around the corner.  Gobble, gobble, gobble.  We're carving up good values with our sale on cleavers, buck knives, Bowie knives, filet knives, and meat grinders.  Shut up, you whore of Babylon.  ( growls ) So swing on down to Johnston's Hardware where our prices will have you - ( crunches ) - hooked.  There you go.  You don't see that every day.  That's pretty intense and pretty violent.  It's right at the start of the film, about seven minutes into the film.  You're showing this at film festivals.  What are audiences saying when they see this movie? You know, what we tried to do, Steve and I had conversations about this.  We didn't want to make it so that it was overtly graphically violent, but what we did want to do was also hint at the fact that he was a very violent person. 

 So even though there are some unsettling things in the film, it's not very graphic, it's not like "cartoon" violence like you see in a lot of films.  But we wanted to set the stage, and I think in that first seven minutes, we wanted to show, he was a murderer, guys.  He was a necrophiliac.  He was a cannibal.  He exhumed bodies and did weird things to them.  We wanted to get that across right from the get-go.  We didn't want to glorify him, nor his actions, but we wanted to show people, Ed Gein was a crazy son of a gun.  Now, he's from Plainfield.  You guys said you're both from near there.  He's from Plainfield, Wisconsin.  A lot of times when I have a film on the show, it's a show about independent filmmaking in Wisconsin, people show the film in their hometowns.  They show the film where the film was made.  Did you show the film in Plainfield, Wisconsin? We haven't, we can't go anywhere near Plainfield.  They're still very sore about the whole thing.  It's a very small town.  "Sore," that's an interesting way to put it.  ( all laugh ) But, can you respect that? Do you understand where they're coming from? Yeah, but, you know, time heals all wounds.  It's been 53 years, and also, too, obviously the town shouldn't embrace Ed Gein, have, like, "Ed Gein Days. " But, boy, your town is known for that.  And unless you have an astronaut or president, or major league baseball player that comes from Plainfield to usurp what Ed did, it's real difficult to get away from that.  Now, obviously, we can't go anywhere, actually, near Washara County. 

 When we drove through a couple weeks ago to one of our showings, we were kind of ducking, actually, all the way through.  But people are still real mad about it.  You've had death threats.  People are really upset by this film.  Yeah, we were lucky enough to get a nice Associated Press article and from that spawned some national news coverage via Fox News and then over 1,000 articles worldwide.  And we got death threats, actually, and threats of mutilation from all 50 states, from as far as London, England and Hong Kong.  And some of them were directed towards Steve, and we actually kept most of them because we thought they were kind of hilarious.  I think the best one, if you would like for me to do this, the best one came from what we kind of figured was a southern person, don't ask me why we figured that.  So, I usually tell the audience before the film, and I affect a real bad southern accent, so if you don't mind, Charles, I'd like to do it.  And this is almost word for word, and this is the best threat of mutilation that we ever had.  ( in a southern accent ) This is directed towards the director of "Ed Gein, The Musical. " How dare you do a movie about this necrophiliac, cannibalistic son of a biscuit! You know what I'd like to do to you? I'd like to cut your arms off and cut your legs off, take a big old hook, and then I'd like to hook your lifeless, armless, legless body and drag you behind my 4x4 through the mud.  And then, I'd like to hose you off.  ( regular voice ) Now, hopefully he meant, with a garden hose.  ( southern accent ) And then I'd like to take your clean, lifeless, armless, legless body and feed it to my dogs.  ( regular voice ) And then he signs it this.  ( southern accent ) Have a nice day, and God bless! Wow.  So, yeah, and that was the most memorable one that we got.  And we kept it and when we're feeling down we read it.  It makes us feel wonderful.  Well, we want to show another clip from the film, and again I want to warn our viewers out there, you might want to change, this is a pretty graphic clip. 

 I wonder if you could set this one up.  One of the clips where he's, I guess, maybe it doesn't need a set up.  Just one of those clips where he's engaging in necrophilia, which is certainly a part of what Ed Gein was about.  So again, a warning to the viewers, and let's roll that clip.  Would you mind telling me why we found human body parts all over your house? Those are my lady friends.  Lady friends?! Who are they? Where do they come from? Girls from all over the county were digging me like I was digging them, too.  Geez, Ed, what the hell is wrong with you? ( breathing heavily ) Hey, Lisa Marie.  How are you? -- you're okay.  I'm going to take you back to my place, okay? We're gonna have a great time, okay? * WON'T YOU LOVE ME * WON'T YOU NEED ME * WON'T YOU DIG ME * FOR I WILL DIG YOU TOO * WON'T YOU HUG ME * WON'T YOU KISS ME * I KNOW * YOU'LL WANT ME TOO * I AM DIGGING * DIG, DIG, DIGGING * TO FIND MY DREAM * LOVE TRUE There are just some songs you do not want to get stuck in your head all day.  I hope that one does not get stuck in my head all day.  Speaking of music.  So, it's a musical.  These are some standards.  You have Elvis songs, and "A Few of My Favorite Things. " Where's all the music come from? Are you guys both musicians? No.  Actually, when we initially had the idea, we went out and shot a very short trailer, just to see if we could get any interest in it.  And after we got some interest from Hollywood and they told us, go ahead and make a full feature length, and we'll see what we can do, we were like, "Okay, where are we going to get the music?" Making a musical.  And we don't have any type of - I mean, I sang a little bit in high school.  And I played the trombone.  Till 8th grade or something.  So we don't really have musical background. 

 But it was funny because we were talking about it, and then this dude came into our office.  We thought he was lost.  He was kind of a hippie, kind of a dude.  And he said, "What are you guys doing?" I said, "We're doing this musical. " He goes, "That's kind of weird.  I just opened up a sound recording studio two blocks from your place. " And I said, "We're doing 'Ed Gein, The Musical. '" And he goes, "What?" He started laughing.  And I said, "We can't pay you anything. " He goes, "I don't care, I'll do whatever you need. " And we find out, his name is Will Kaiser, and we find out that he's a professional musician, worked in Nashville for years, did Nashville things, and did a beautiful job.  Yeah, the music's good.  Thank you.  Half the songs are parodies and half of them are originals, but I wrote the lyrics for them and I've never done that before.  And when I gave it to him, he looked at the lyrics and said, "You've never written a song before, have you?" And I said no.  But then I said, "I think this is how I want the song to go. " So I'd sing a couple of bars and stuff and he'd stop me and say, "I got it, I got it. " And then he'd just go with it.  Oh, cool.  Yeah, and there were some talented musicians, too, that came aboard.  Speaking of that, you were talking about doing the lyrics. 

 You play Ed Gein.  Now, that's a pretty intense role and there are moments, which are good for acting, but I wanted to ask you about, where you seemed to really get into it.  It's really intense.  What was it like getting your game face on to basically practice necrophilia and killing someone and dismembering someone? It must have been a really odd experience to be Ed Gein.  You know what I did, though, as preparation for it.  What Steve and I wanted to get across was, he just wasn't born a monster.  That his dad beat him severely almost on a daily basis and his mom, sadly, molested him.  I thought about that horrible, hopeless sadness that comes with that type of abuse.  And the moment I did that, everything then came to fruition.  There you go.  And that was so easy, not because of personal experiences, my parents treated me like gold, but once you get into that sadness and that despicable situation he was in, you literally become Ed.  And it's sad, but you do.  And so I hope people have sympathy, not for him, but maybe are empathetic to people that have been through that situation.  'Cause there could be an end result.  Yeah, yeah.  And it was almost fairly easy to feel that.  But it was almost like an overwhelming, palatable sadness that I had when I played him.  Literally a sadness.  So that's what you felt.  You didn't feel disgust, you didn't have nightmares.  You just felt depressed 'cause the guy had a horrible life. 

 Yeah, just a horrible, horrible, horrible life.  And on top of it, he was scarred because of his dad, he had a slight speech impediment.  There were a lot of things physically wrong with him, too, to top it all off.  So he wasn't given a silver spoon when he was born.  I want to show another clip.  Before we do, again, I want to warn our viewers that it's very graphic.  There's a lot of myth surrounding Ed Gein as well.  And I'm curious, inside of your film, things like the chili cook-off, which goes into the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which he's related to.  How real is all this? Did he really use human meat to do a chili cook-off and everybody in the family and the town ate it? How accurate is your film? Or did you not worry about, more worried about the myth that kids were talking about on the playground? We actually tried to stay fairly accurate with a lot of it.  As far as winning the chili cook-off, that we took a little liberty with.  But he was known to take meat to all of his neighbors and he said after he was arrested that he never actually shot a deer, but he always had venison that he was handing out.  He said, "This is my venison sausage or this is my venison chili," and then they asked him later, they said, "Well, where's your deer? Did you go hunting this year?" And he's like, "I don't like hunting, I've never been hunting. " So you kind of make the inference there, sadly.  But we did try to make it as historically accurate as possible.  Now, one of the movies was called "Ed Gein, Dancing to the Light of the Moon. " And when he was interviewed by, I think Robert Elsworth, a psychologist, social worker, they asked him, "What did you do with the bodies?" And he said, "In the light of the moon, I would dance with them. " So you know, in order to dance, you have to have a rhythm, you have to have a beat.  And all we did was just put the lyrics behind that rhythm and beat.  That's a great set-up for our next clip.  Again, I want to warn our listeners.  And this is another clip from "Ed Gein, The Musical. 

" * Hello, Lisa Marie.  Hello, Edward Gein.  * MY DREAM * MY WALKING, TALKING * LIVING DREAM * YOU ARE * MY DANCING, PRANCING * ROMANCING DREAM * OH MY, ED * YOU MUST BE DAFT * IN THE HEAD * FOR I AM * MOST CERTAINLY DEAD * I KNOW IT'S TRICKY * BUT I AIN'T PICKY * I'LL LOVE YOU * EVEN IF YOU'RE STICKY * OR DOWNRIGHT ICKY * MY ED * MY SWEET TALKING ED * IF I AGREE TO THIS * WHAT WILL BECOME OF ME * WELL, FIRST * I'M GOING * TO MAKE YOU MOVE * AND THEN I WILL * MAKE YOU GROOVE * AND THEN I WILL MAKE * SWEET LOVE TO YOU ( speaking ) And then, I'm gonna chop your head off, chop your arms off, chop your hands off, chop your legs off, and then I'll probably skin you like a raccoon and cut you like a deer.  And then, I'm gonna make interesting things from you.  What types of things? Well, why don't you come with me, and we could both find out.  * * LAMPSHADES ON LAMPPOSTS * AND SKIN CHAIRS * FOR SITTIN' * BRIGHT HUMAN SKULL BOWLS * AND WARM FLESH-LINED MITTENS * BROWN PAPER PACKAGES * WITH FINGERS AND RINGS * THESE ARE A FEW * OF MY DEMENTED THINGS That's definitely not the song I want to get stuck in my head.  As we were talking about, Ed Gein the person has inspired a number of films.  "Hotel Hell," "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" on the more gratuitous side.  And of course, "Silence of the Lambs" on the more artistic side.  How is your film different than the dozens of films that the Ed Gein story has inspired? Obviously the music that we involve.  Also, we, I think, are more accurate than a lot of them that claim to be based on him, even the ones that are named "Ed Gein, Butcher of Plainfield," and "Dancing in the Light of the Moon. " They show mountains in the background and the people have southern accents, which. . .  And also, too, we had a psychologist who actually worked at Mendota in Madison.  He was just starting out the last couple years that Ed was there, and he came up to us and said that he was kind of an aficionado of serial killers.  He said, "I obviously don't want to be one, I'm a psychologist. " But he said our film, though, was more historically accurate than anything other than the A&E biography on Ed Gein.  Which, we shook his hand, and that was just a nice compliment.  But we tried to keep it, even the words that he sang, there's about 10 or 12 lines that are actually from the transcripts.  Actually from what Robert Elsworth and the books that were written about him, exactly almost word for word what he said. 

 Were you ever worried that you were going to step over the line? Were you over worried that this was simply just going to be salacious and gratuitous? Did you even care? You don't have to care.  We did care.  We didn't want to go over the top.  Actually, the scene that we saw earlier is about the most violent in it.  The rest of it's kind of cartoonish.  Not overly so, but yeah, we tried to keep it. . .  Yeah, where we changed the names as well.  We made sure the names were all different.  We didn't make it hyper-violent.  We kind of paid a modicum of respect to the people that he had exhumed and did weird things to.  How do you do that? Just to be real here for a second.  You have a woman, he's dancing with a dead woman.  Let's go with someone he actually murders.  He shoots someone in the back of the head, takes them home, skins them.  So where's the respect go? And then you sing a song about it? I'm just asking, because you were saying.  How is that respectful? I think because of the fact that it wasn't violence for violence's sake, number one.  It wasn't graphically violent.  Although we did, I think, we pushed the envelope, let's say that.  We did push the envelope. 

 And we're not coming across being like clean, rated-G, Disney film by any stretch of the imagination.  But what we didn't want to do was, number one, use the original names.  Number two, show it gratuitously.  We didn't want it to be anything sexual other than just hinted at.  So we tried to keep it on those levels.  But it's hard to make a movie about a cannibalistic necrophiliac without making those intimations.  Right.  Once you made the choice to make "Ed Gein, The Musical," certain things have to happen.  You bet, yeah.  I want to show our clip, and again I want to warn our viewers of the violent nature of the clip.  And this one, you actually set it up earlier, what I call the "Leave it to Beaver" clip.  And this is actually showing Ed Gein where you're trying to show a little empathy and show a little bit of his background, very natural-born killer-esque.  We're going to play that clip and then we'll talk a little bit more about it.  So let's see another clip from "Ed Gein, The Musical. " Those are some pretty violent, some pretty graphic comic books you've got there.  These are my escape.  You escape from your violent and sick upbringing by retreating into violent and sick comic books? My upbringing wasn't that bad at all.  As a matter of fact, it was really good.  * Narrator: "Leave It To The Father of Edward," starring Ed Gein.  * Augusta Gein.  * And George Gein as "The Father. 

" * Tonight's episode, "Don't Tell Mommy. " Golly gee, Father.  I just finished up with my paper route and I've got a huge hankering for some refreshment.  Well, that's swell, Eddie.  If it's all right with your mother, then why the knickers not? Ha ha, Dad, you're peachy keen.  Well, thanks, Eddie.  Hey, have I told you a secret lately? As a matter of fact, Dad, you haven't.  Well, you think you can keep this close to the vest? Under your hat? And generally on the low profile? Gosh, golly gee, jerwillickers, Pop.  I think you know me.  I'm made in the shade when it comes to that.  I won't tell a soul.  'Cause I know if I do, I'd be cruising for a bruising.  Oh ho ho, funny you should mention the word bruising, son.  Because we'd like to keep your daily beatings, emotional harangues, and weekly molestations just between you, me, and your mother.  Okay, Skipper? ( exaggerated laughter ) What a great son you are.  ( Ed laughs ) See? Perfectly normal.  A clip from "Ed Gein, The Musical. " Empathy for a serial killer.  That's what you're showing there.  And I'm curious.  We talked a little bit about empathy for victims. 

 You're from that area.  Have you run into, "My grandmother was killed by Ed Gein"? Have you run into that? Ed Gein's such a notorious figure in Wisconsin history, everyone has an Ed Gein story.  Some of them are true, some of them aren't.  But we did have, when we were in Weyauwega, showing at the opera house, we ran into some people that were from Plainfield who said their grandmother had been dug up and that they knew that for a fact.  There are two people that are known for a fact who had been dug up and they knew the correct person.  We offered them free tickets to the show, "Come on down, it's on us, we can get you popcorn, soda, whatever you want.  And watch the film and then let us know what you think. " And after they watched it they were like, "You really did a good job with it. " They thanked us, they came up to us and shook our hands and said, "Thank you. " And we were blown away.  They said there were some things that they didn't agree with, but they felt the sympathy and the empathy for the victims as well as Ed.  They were thankful that we did it.  And as a matter of fact, one of the older gals gave me a hug.  Were you expecting that? No, no.  I can't imagine you were expecting a hug.  No, no.  But it was wonderful.  It really made us feel like we were kind of doing the right thing with it and it was nice.  You put a lot of effort into this, and I asked why you did it because of the content.  But what was the budget for this? How much did it cost you to make this? We actually had about $9,000 that we filmed it with and that went almost exclusively to pizza and beer for our cast and crew.  We weren't able to pay anybody. 

 In Wisconsin, you can get people to work hard, that are harder workers, smarter people, and pay them in pizza and beer and they'll do a damn good job.  There you go.  ( unintelligible ) ( all laugh ) I'm curious.  And for viewers of this film, for viewers of the clips, for people who see it on public television, what do you hope they get from this? What are you hoping that you've given to society by making this movie? That serial killers and people who do nefarious acts aren't born that way, exactly.  There's circumstances behind it that end up making them that way.  And Ed Gein was kind of a perfect storm of abuse and molestation and isolation.  And he ended up being in a complete fantasy world.  And for you, as an actor, being a part of this, and obviously helping write the musical, you put a lot of time and effort into making a musical about a serial killer.  What do you hope people get out of it? You know, Steve said it almost perfectly and I agree with that.  You know, we don't want to feel sorry for people that - because we're always given choices, and there are a lot of songs in the film about giving choices.  God gives us three choices.  You can do the bad thing, you can do a good thing, or you shouldn't do anything at all.  And he always chose specifically to do the horrible thing.  I wanted to get that across, too.  That there were people that were molested and hurt as a youngster and they're very upstanding, warm, great citizens and great people.  That's kind of what we wanted to get across, too.  But also, entertainment.  Films should entertain first and foremost.  And we wanted it to be entertaining, we wanted the dark Alice humor, we wanted people to walk away with a good song in their head, but also, too, to kind of feel sorry for people who are in that situation a little bit.  So I think we hit the nail on the head with all three of them, at least I hope, anyway, and our crowd reaction has been that way.  It has been a bizarre experience for me. 

 Watching that was a really interesting experience, to be home with the popcorn.  So, thank you very much for joining us.  It was a very interesting interview, I appreciate it.  And we thank all of you very much for watching Director's Cut.  For more information on "Ed Gein, The Musical," please go to wpt. org/directorscut.  And while you're there, send us an email, because we'd love to hear from you.  I'm your host, Charles Monroe-Kane, and for everyone here at Director's Cut, thank you very much for joining us today.  Check the gate.  * What were you doing at the hardware store this morning? * SOMEBODY FRAMED ME What? * SOMEBODY FRAMED ME Shut up and quit singing.  It's a musical. . . ECHO is on.